tathyabangla.org.in

PASCHIM BANGA NATYA AKADEMI
1/1,A.J.C.Bose Road
kolkata – 700020
Tel: 2223-1132

Paschim Banga Natya Akademi

The State Natya Akademi, founded on 26 September 1987, has pursued a comprehensive programme over the years, supporting and sustaining theatre activity in the State in several ways; including a series of week-long training workshops in the district towns, culminating in more specialized workshops with participants picked up from the district workshops, and conducted by B.V.Karanth for sound and music in theatre, H.Kanhailal and H.Savtri for acting, and Bibhash Chakrabarty for direction; a workshop for new playwrights, conducted by playwright-director Manoj Mitra; two national theatre festivals featuring productions by Habib Tanveer, M.K.Raina, B.Jayashree, Utpal Dutta, Sreeram Lagoo, Neelam Mansing Chowdhury, Ratan Thiyam, C.Basavalingaiah, Ajit Bhurey, Bibhash Chakrabarty and others; two productions of classics directed by Utpal Dutta and Bibash Chakrabarty. The Akademi also produced the brilliant comedy by Rabindranath Tagore, "Chirakumar Sabha" in collaboration with the Drama Department, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata under the direction of Ashok Mukhopadhyay. Several lectures and seminars and publications including annotated reprints of 'list' and 'banned' plays and a periodical of seven annual issues including one special issue on Brecht; and grants, awards and subsides; audio and video recordings of productions and theatre pieces and songs and interviews with theatre veterans; and Theatre festivals and seminars in the districts have been organized. Special workshops on Direction, script-writing and acting were also conducted by Arun Mukhopadhyay, Neelkantha Sengupta and Ashok Mukhopadhyay in 1998. Memorial Lectures have been instituted in the names of Herasim Lebedeff, Sambhu Mitra and Utpal Dutta. A state-level festival of Brecht plays was organized in February 1999 in view of the Brecht Centenary. Productions of plays by Brecht and Lorca were also launched. The Akademi has its own archive and library (books, disc, records, audio and video cassettes, photographs) and is conducting several research projects, including one that should lead to a biographical Dictionary and encyclopedia of theatres, companies, and theatre institutions of the Bengali theatre. The Akademi, under the auspices of the Department of Information and Cultural